The Psycho Rangers: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

If they know all the moves of their heroic counterparts, the Psycho Rangers may be too strong for their duplicates one-on-one. The heroes can sometimes turn the tables by [[Opponent Switch|switching opponents and fighting each others' evil doubles]]. Without knowledge of the heroes' fighting techniques, the Psycho Rangers become much easier to defeat. (Unless they promptly switch ''back'' again.)

 

 

The most extreme, but not the most common, type of Psycho Rangers are literally evil clones or [[Mirror Universe]] counterparts of the heroes.

 

A [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Five-Bad Band]] and [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]]. May to various extents also be a [[Similar Squad]]. Can be part of a [[Geodesic Cast]]. Usually turns out to be an [[Evil Knockoff]] team. May lead to [[Counterpart Combat Coordination]].

 

== Trope Namer ==

* The trope namer are the Psycho Rangers from ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'', a group of evil rangers that fought against the Space Rangers during the course of the series. Their counterparts in ''[[Denji Sentai Megaranger]]'' were the Jaden Sentai Nejiranger.

** Most recently we have {{spoiler|Shiryu of the Rain}}, who makes a good counterpart for Zoro. He is also a swordsman and, much like Zoro in his role as [[Number Two]], is the one who calls out Blackbeard after his recklessness nearly gets the rest of the crew killed. Blackbeard and {{spoiler|Shiryu}} even met in a similar fashion, as the latter was on death row until Blackbeard came along.

** In this case, it's still a little early to tell who's a counterpart of who. {{spoiler|Especially now that the Blackbeard Pirates have doubled in size. One could easily argue that San Juan Wolf, the "Colossal Battleship", is the counterpart to ''the Thousand Sunny''.}}

* ''[[Naruto]]'' sets up a fairly traditional Psycho Ranger arrangement for the genin squad trying to rescue Sasuke:

** [[Gentle Giant]] Chouji against [[The Brute]] Jiroubou. "Who are * you* calling fat?!" ensues.

** Taijutsu specialists face off when [[Incurable Cough of Death|sick and dying]] yet still unbeatable Kimimaro meets still-recovering miniature [[Bruce Lee Clone]] Rock Lee.

** Then the series proceeds to set Sasuke himself up as Naruto's very own Psycho Ranger. Right up to the point where Naruto and his charming spiritual freeloader start to psycho back...

** Classic Sailor Moon: The Shittenou. Jaedite - Mars, Nephrite - Jupiter, Zoicite - Mercury, Kunzite - Venus.

** Sailor Moon R / Black Moon: The Ayakashi Sisters. Kooan - Mars, Berthier - Mercury, Petz - Jupiter, Calaveras - Venus.

* Weiss of ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' run into no less than ''three'' teams of Psycho Rangers, with increasingly closer resemblances to the series' four protagonists: Schreient, who qualified as Psycho Rangers mostly just by being a team of four assassins opposing the protagonists; Schwartz, who draw a more direct comparison ("Weiss" and "Schwartz" are German for "white" and "black"); and La Mort, the four villains of ''Dramatic Precious'', all-out Psycho Rangers who started out as a previous incarnation of Weiss themselves only to be driven [[Ax Crazy]] by the job.

* ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'''s Dark Legendary Warriors. Notably, there's not as many straight match-ups as you think; [[Holy Hand Grenade|Lobomon]] has a rivalry with [[Dark Is Edgy|Duskmon]], as does [[Designated Girl Fight|Kazemon with Ranamon]], but the other three per team aren't as clear-cut - the good guys tended to encounter just one of their dark counterparts at once, and they'd all team up against him.

* In a recent chapter of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', while observing [[Floating Continent]] Ostia, [[Arch Enemy]] [[White-Haired Pretty Boy|Fate]] has revealed that he has his own [[Transformation Trinket|Pactio cards]] and a squad of partners to match the Ala Alba. It was also revealed that Nagi Springfield's team the Ala Rubra when ''they'' fought Fate had a similar set of opponents each to match their abilities: a [[Supernatural Martial Arts|martial artist]], a [[The Big Guy|Big Guy]], a [[Glass Cannon|wide-spread destroyer]], a [[Barrier Warrior|barrier fighter]] and Fate himself to match the [[Kung Fu Wizard|combat]] [[Magic Knight|mage]] hero Nagi.

* Mewtwo's Pokemon clones from the [[Pokémon: The First Movie|first movie]]. The Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise and Pikachu clones sport markings to distinguish them from the originals but the rest all look the same. It's subverted when {{spoiler|Ash gets killed in the crossfire and their tears revive him}}. In fact the movie might count as a deconstruction of this trope.

** The clones in the filler Invasion arc. They are stronger and more violent than the originals. And the filler [[Big Bad]] has cloned most of the captains. [[Cool Versus Awesome|Fun times]].

* The tail end of the last episode of the first season of ''[[Galaxy Angel (anime)|Galaxy Angel]]'' showed a team of evil counterparts to the Angels, one of whom was a spy that the real Angels just helped release. Unfortunately, [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|this is all we ever see of them.]]

** Grunbeld is a massive warrior who wears similar armor and has an [[Arm Cannon]] like Guts

** Irvine and Locus are [[Bishounen]] [[Noble Demon]] characters who are obvious counterparts to two nobles (literally and figuratively) on Guts' side, Serpico and Roderick

* The ''[[Yes! Pretty Cure 5]]'' movie features a Dark Cure team. In what is perhaps a bit of [[Genre Savviness]], the first thing they do when they face the Pretty Cure team is to warp their counterparts off to different locations so they can't use the "switching opponents" trick.

* The Garuru Platoon from ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]''. Giroro's counterpart is [[Aloof Big Brother|Garuru]], Dororo's counterpart is [[Unknown Rival|Zoruru]], Kururu's counterpart is Tororo, Tamama's counterpart is Taruru, and Keroro's counterpart is {{spoiler|a child-aged clone of himself from before he met Fuyuki and Natsumi.}}

* ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' had traces of this in both Shinryuuji amd Ojou. Hiruma, Unsui, amd Takami are all physically average quarterbacks who compensate with their dedication and intelligence, Kurita, Yamabushi, and Ootawara are all incredibly large noseguards who cry at the end of their games, Monta, Ikkyu, and Sakuraba are all recievers determined to be the best who have one area of specialty, and Sena, Agon, and Shin are the "aces" of their team.

* ''[[Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt|Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt]]'' has the two [[Lawful Evil|rule-obsessed]] demon sisters Scanty and Kneesocks, whom are also the [[Big Bad]]'s daughters. Respectively they battle their counterparts with [[Revolvers Are Just Better|revolvers]] and [[Sinister Scythe|scythes]].

** Proteus = Metamorpho

** Vulcanus = Black Lightning

** Now there's also a Red She-Hulk in the mix.

* [[Norman Osborn]], the [[Villain with Good Publicity]] formerly known as the Green Goblin, led ''two'' groups of Psycho Rangers, as part of ''Dark Reign'':

** The Cabal are Psycho Rangers to [[Iron Man]]'s Illuminati: Norman himself takes Tony's place, and the rest are [[X-Men (Comic Book)|Emma Frost (Professor X)]]; [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Doctor Doom (Mr Fantastic)]]; Loki (Black Bolt of [[The Inhumans]]); [[The Hood]] ([[Doctor Strange]]); and the Sub-Mariner (er, [[Heel Face Revolving Door|the Sub-Mariner]]).

*** Then come Utopia, Emma and Namor reveal their intentions and leave the Cabal, so Osborn has to pick up someone to fill the spot. Apparently the Taskmaster was the next best option.

** Patriot, the [[The Hero|determined leader]] is met by the doubt-filled, insecure Melter.

** The gay magician Wiccan's counterpart is the female sorceress Enchantress.

** Stature faces Big Zero, a [[Badass Bookworm]] [[Legacy Character]] against a [[Dark Action Girl]] and racist. Both are size-changers.

** Vision and Egghead are both robots.

** For unknown reasons, Hulkling doesn't have a counterpart in the other team. The Dark Young Avengers are somewhat unusual, because the Dark Young Avengers were not gathered together to fight the original Young Avengers, but just want to be heroes. However, they will probably end up under Osborn's control. What's more, some relationships between the members of the Dark Young Avengers mirror those in the Young Avengers. just like Stature and Vision love each other, Big Zero has a crush on Egghead.

** The title of the story arc; "Young Masters", combined with their names, offers a pretty big clue as to where it's going.

* The original Soviet Super Heroes team primarily featured clear counterparts to [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]] team they often opposed. Perun, the Slavic god of thunder, was the Thor counterpart; Sputnik/Vostok, a calculating android, was the Vision's counterpart; the Red Guardian, uber-patriotic Soviet supersoldier, was the Captain America analogue; Surge, a man in a suit of [[Powered Armor]], was Iron Man; Sabercat was the Beast, Vanguard was Hawkeye, Darkstar was the Scarlet Witch, etc.

* Another case of the Psycho Rangers not actually facing their counterparts (because [[Final Crisis|they're dead]]) is the team of knock-off [[New Gods]] that have bedeviled the [[Justice League of America]]: Dr Impossible, the evil Mr Miracle from an early storyline, is now joined by Hunter (evil Orion); Neon Black (evil Lightray); Chair (evil [and dumb] Metron); and Tender Mercy (evil Big Barda).

* In ''[[Rawhide Kid]]: The Sensational Seven'', when the [[Big Bad]] learns that the Rawhide Kid and the Seven are coming for him, he recruits a team composed of villainous counterparts of the Seven.

* The White Lions were the Nazi counterpart to the heroic [[Blackhawk]] Squadron.

* In the [[Archie Comics]] version of ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', there's at least three groups. The first is the Suppression Squad, [[Mirror Universe]] counterparts of the Freedom Fighters. The second is the Destructix, a group of mercenaries lead by Scourge the Hedgehog, Sonic's [[Mirror Universe]] counterpart, and his girlfriend Fiona Fox (which may be a jab at Sonic and Sally being unable to stay together). Recently, Eggman's unleased a series of Metal-series bots comprised of Metal Sonic, Metal Tails, Metal Knuckles and {{spoiler|Mecha Sally}}.

 

 

* A rather interesting case in ''[[Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy]]''. The Akutare brothers, managers of the Sunday Scent Shop, oppose the girls in episodes 16 and 17... But the girls are five, so neither Ayameko nor Hanae have counterparts.

* {{spoiler|The Axem Rangers X}} in Part 2 of ''[[Clash of the Elements]]''

 

* The ''[[City of Heroes]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] novel ''The Freedom Phalanx'' has the Tyranny Legion, Psycho Rangers for the not-yet-formed Phalanx. The armored hero Positron has his old boss, Doctor Null, who's stuck inside his armor; Synapse, who got his powers from one of Null's experiments, has Revenant, his ex-friend who was turned into a zombie through a similar experiment; Sister Psyche, the mutant psychic, has the Shadow Queen, whose psychic powers come from a possessed mask; Manticore, a [[Batman]]-esque vigilante, has Protean, the shapeshifter who killed his parents; and, of course, Statesman has Lord Recluse, whose rivalry the entire game revolves around.

* [[Tom Clancy]]'s ''[[In Name Only|Op-Center]]'' series (which, as the [[Pothole]] implies, was ghostwritten) has the titular crisis command headquarters and its Russian counterpart, ''Mirror Image''. Sometimes they cooperate, sometimes not.

* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', [[Sixth Ranger Traitor|David]]'s ultimate plan for the [[Super Empowering|blue box]] was to use it to create a gang of morphing criminals to counter the Animorphs. The Animorphs were able to defeat him before he could put this plan into action.

 

** Fred's tourguide is Knox, a morally ambiguous geeky scientist... {{spoiler|he worships an [[Eldritch Abomination]] and will eventually cause her death}}.

** Wesley's guide is Rutherford Sirk, a former Watcher.

* The season six finale of ''[[Charmed]]'' featured an alternate universe where the role of good and evil were switched with the humans/witches as evil and the demons good. The sisters met their evil counterparts as well as counterparts for Chris and Leo. They tried fighting them but of course came to a draw. A subversion then happened where they decided to work together for their respective greater good/evil.

* By the end of the second season of ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'', Weaver, John Henry, Ellison and Savannah were the morally ambiguous, if not dark, mirrors of Sarah, John, Derek and Cameron.

* ''[[Bionicle]]'' had the Shadow Toa, illusory copies of the Toa that could only be defeated when the heroes acknowledged that the darkness was a part of themselves.

** Smilarly, the [[Bee People|Bohrok Kal]] and [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|Piraka Gang]] are seperate groups with elemental powers. The Piraka Gang almost managed to pass themselves of as the real deal (It helps that the townsfolk in question had never seen a Toa before).

 

 

** Marduk, Sailor Jupiter's counterpart, is named for the leader of the Babylonian gods.

** Ishtar, in addition to being a bad movie, was the Babylonian goddess of love, and a fitting name for Sailor Venus' counterpart.

* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' games played with this trope a few times. In ''Sonic Adventure 2'', Team Dark consisted of Shadow, Eggman and Rouge: three villains with the same powers and move sets as [[Power Trio|Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles]] respectively. They'd return with some adjustments as antiheroes in ''Sonic Heroes'': Rouge moved from Knuckles' counterpart to Tails', and Eggman was replaced by new character Omega, who filled the "Anti-Knuckles" slot.

** Similarly the Babylon Rogues in ''[[Sonic Riders]]''.

** They had a set of Psycho Rangers as early as the Saturn era. In ''[[Sonic R]]'', there were Metal Sonic, Mecha Knuckles and the Tails Doll whom Robotnik created to give Sonic and friends a hard time.

*** The first ones mentioned got even more psycho counterparts: Eggman Nega, Mephiles, and Shade, although they never met.

* Vize, Faina and Anita in ''[[Skies of Arcadia]] Legends''.

* The Hell Hounds in ''[[Galaxy Angel (video game)|Galaxy Angel]]'', a group of mercenaries that just happened to have a grudge or other fixation with each of the specific Moon Angels. In the second game, they were replaced by actual robot duplicates of the Angels, foreshadowed by the brief presence of a robotic Tact in the first game. The fake Angels were the only villains to carry over to the ''[[Galaxy Angel (anime)|Galaxy Angel]]'' anime, although they only appeared for one episode.

** Sync is actually Guy's counterpart, although this is more by virtue of everyone else being taken than anything else.

*** Storywise, there is a time when Sync and Guy conterpart each other, when Sync puts the curse mark on Guy.

* The Praetorians in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' are the [[Mirror Universe|evil other-universe]] counterparts of the Freedom Corps heroes.

** The first of the new Positron Task Forces introduced in Issue 17: Dark Mirror, feature a team of "[[Evil Knockoff|shadow simulacra]]" of the [[Player Party]]. Issue 17 in general revolves around doubles of the [[Player Character]].

* ''[[Alter Echo]]'' pits the heroic shaper Nevin and his teammates, the gruff gun-toting Stome and the blade-wielding [[Action Girl]] Arana against the evil shaper Paavo and his bodyguards, the idiotic gun-toting Gherran and the blade-wielding [[Psycho for Hire]] Kess.

* [[Big Bad|Jon Irenicus]] in ''[[Baldur's Gate]] II'' is powerful enough to create a group of identical copies of your party with one spell, although they are relatively easily defeated because they lack many of the originals' more special powers.

** Or is it the other way around? I can never remember.

* In ''[[Ultraman Fighting Evolution Rebirth]]'', a trio of evil Ultras are introduced. Chaosroid U, a clone of Ultraman, Chaosroid S, a copy of Ultraseven, and Chaosroid T, Taro's counterpart. While they're fought one by one by their counterparts, they attack Nebula M78 as a team and {{spoiler|capture two important artifacts of the Ultras, Chaosroid S stealing the Ultra Key and Chaosroid T steals the Ultra Bell while Chaosroid U comes close to stealing the Plasma Spark.}} In addition to the powerful weapons they steal, S has the ability to split his Eye Slugger into a huge number of weapons and Chaosroid U is more powerful than Ultraman, {{spoiler|until the [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Plasma Spark reenergizes him and let's him blow U away with the Giga Specium Beam]]. }}

* In ''[[Battle Realms]]'' the Serpent clan is the yin counterpart of the yang Dragon clan.

* ''[[Hexen]]'' has Zedek, Traductus, and Menelkir, a trio of [[The Dragon|Dragons]] who are clones of the three player character classes. Each uses the most powerful weapon of his class.

* The Dark Aeons from ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' are evil versions of all the Aeons that can be obtained in the game and boast higher HP, super powerful attacks and evil colour schemes. Though they are fought separately, the Dark Magus Sisters are fought together thus invoking the trope. Your normal Aeons will take on the appearances of the Dark Aeons at the end when Yu Yevon possesses them. They reappear in the sequel as possessed once again.

* In ''[[Ultima IV]]'', the final fight is against the "evil yous", a team of evil copies of your party.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

 

* In ''[[Shortpacked]]'', a minor character {{spoiler|who was fired instead of a major character}} forms a team of other minor characters into a league of minor evil.

* Sven's Gang in ''[[Cwen's Quest]]'' appear to be this having a counter part to each of Cwen's friends and allies. Overlaps with [[Evil Counterpart]] a bit, although Cwen's [[Revenge Before Reason|isn't exactly a hero]].

* The [[Gender Bender|T-Girls]] of ''[[Webcomic Jet Dream]]'' face off against another all-girl flying team, Raven Red and her Dynamic Dare-Dolls. Each of the Dare-Dolls fits a national stereotype that isn't "covered" by one of the T-Girls.

 

* Almost every subgroup has a counterpart team on the opposite side in ''[[Transformers]]''. The Triggerbots and Triggercons, the Protectobots and the Combaticons, the Aerialbots and the Stunticons, etc.

** The G1 origins of the Aerialbots and Stunticons are an inversion, with the former created by the heroes to counteract the latter.

** Due to a shortage of Autobot combiners, however, the Constructicons and Predacons never had exact opposites. The Dinobots and/or Omega Supreme were the arch-enemies of the former, and Sky Lynx was the enemy of the latter. (Despite being small compared to Predaking, Sky Lynx has defeated them more often than not. Because he's that good. [[Insufferable Genius|And knows it.]])

* The [[Spear Counterpart|Rowdyruff Boys]] in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]''.

* The Anti J-Team in ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures]]'', comprised of criminal counterparts of Jackie, Jade, Viper, El Toro, and Tohru.

* The Delightful Children From Down The Lane in ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' look eerily similar to [[Five-Man Band|Sector V]]. {{spoiler|The movie reveals that they were once the lost team from Sector Z.}}

* Played straight and subverted on ''[[Justice League]]''. In the original, there were three versions of the Injustice Gang. However, only the third was made of any form of counterparting to the seven members of the League (and even then, the relations were stretched at best), and the fights for each tended to trade off who fought who every time. In ''Unlimited'', the various Injustice League members merged into the [[Legion of Doom]], which had grown in response to the Justice League's growth. It should be noted that the villain The Shade has the distinction of being on all four Injustice Leagues. (He points this out at the third Injustice League formation, to which the villain recruiting him replies "Third time's the charm".)

** The [[Alternate Universe]] counterparts introduced in ''A Better World'' are near perfect Psycho Rangers. [[Superman]] and [[Batman]] did mention that having counterparts willing to break any "rules" they kept would make them much more difficult to fight. It was somewhat subverted when {{spoiler|Batman's counterpart proved to still have the same sense of morality.}} In ''Unlimited'', {{spoiler|Brainiac/Luthor}} recreated the alternate universe counterparts, and a few needed to trade partners to defeat them. (Flash defeated his counterpart in a most excellent way. His counterpart taunted him [[Hannibal Lecture|by saying no one else trusts him with his childish behavior]] and the Flash responded with [[Shut UP, Hannibal|"Says you! I got a seat at the big conference table...I'm going to paint my logo on it!" And he proceeded to destroy the counterpart.]])

** In the [[Grand Finale]], when the Legion of Doom and the Justice League were about to come to blows, there was an excellent shot of everybody facing off with their [[Evil Counterpart]]: Green Lantern vs. Sinestro, Superman vs. Bizarro, Atomic Skull vs. [[Captain Atom]], Giganta vs. Iron Giant, Volcana vs. Fire...and Batman standing alone, since nobody is cool enough to beat Batman.

* Clones of the protagonists from ''[[Gargoyles]]''. Subverted in that only Goliath's clone [[Sdrawkcab Name|Thailog]] was actually evil. But they did have the same fighting their doubles problem.

** In the comic book continuation, {{spoiler|Lexington's clone Brentwood chose to stick with Thailog. He's portrayed, like the rest, as more gullible and naive than actually evil.}}

* One episode of ''[[Class of 3000]]'' features the Westley kids going up against their counterparts from Eastley, all of whom wear red and black [[Putting on the Reich|Reich-style uniforms]]. Coincidentally their teacher looks nothing like Sonny.

* The Shadow Avengers were MacBeth's attempt to create her own version of the ''[[Invisible Network of Kids]]''.

* ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]''; in the episode "Citizen Ghost", Peter Venkman recounts how Slimer first came to stay with the Ghostbusters after the Gozer incident. They received new uniforms to replace their original uniforms, which were heavily contaminated with ectoplasm. The ectoplasm later animated the old uniforms, creating four ghostly doppelgangers of the Ghostbusters, out to take down the originals, until Slimer ended up saving them.

 

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